outfit of the [yester]day: skydancing

This dress reminds me of a more gently colorful and joyous period in my life: that brief stretch of my youth wherein I acquired an admirable collection of pastel-hued, fantasy-themed 90s toys. I wish more than anything that I had kept my Starcastle, which boasts the unique distinction of serving as both protective fortress and enchanting carousel alike. (Not to mention the fact that it apparently turned into a tea set.) Alas, my younger equivalent could never have imagined that her Mainland-dwelling, engaged-and-in-grad-school future self would have genuinely wanted to display a glittery plastic castle—I understand the success of eBay with the nostalgia generation all too well.

Apparently, the genius minds behind the Starcastle line were also responsible for the Skydancer flying fairy dolls that mercifully never seriously injured anyone in my family. I owned a few Skydancer books when I was very young, and though they were dramatically below my reading level I found myself entranced by the soft colors and sun-dappled clouds of their celestial realm. I’m sure if I pulled on a pair of wings and floated into my childhood home in this outfit, I could pass for one of them quite well!

I always feel a bit ill-suited to the “90s kid” designation, since I was barely in second grade when that decade ended and most of my formative childhood years fell within the early 2000s (an even stranger time, in many ways). That said, all of my 90s cultural touchstones are perhaps all the dearer because I was so very young: I’ve become oddly emotional (and oddly tempted to go on eBay) while recollecting on these strange lost toys of times gone by! (I know I’ve already spoken at length on this blog about those halcyon days with my Barbie Undersea Adventure CD-ROM…) How long do you suspect I can hold out before one of those castles ends up in my house again?